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This is my review page for Petiteknit's Dagmar Jacket pattern.
Yarn and sizing:
First of all, I'll talk about the yarn choice. I went for "Mota" by Wooldreamers (100gr - 230m), my go-to yarn for cabled or textured pieces.
The pattern's recommended yarn is "Hjelholt Triple" (100gr - 165m), so my yarn was thinner than the recommended one and much closer to a worsted weight.
The gauge for the pattern is 18 x 24 in "textured pattern", which I assume is the diamond repeat. Considering the design, a 18 st gauge for an aran yarn is quite tight - I assume the finished object in Hjelholt Triple is very dense (since mine is, even with a worsted weight yarn).
I chose to knit size XXS, and my swatch resulted in 19-20sts / 25 rows by 10cm instead of the listed 18 on 4.5mm needles. Given that my bust measurement is 75cm, I didn't go up a pattern size nor a needle size. Considering how thick my jumper is, I think the recommended gauge could be obtained with this yarn if worked in 5mm needles without producing a loose fabric.
My final jumper's bust measurement is around 90 cm; 17cm less than listed. I'm very happy it turned out this way, since 15cm of ease is plenty for my taste.
Construction:
This pattern is worked top-down in a very usual way for "european shoulder construction" (the following tekt is PetiteKnit's description):
"The back yoke is worked back and forth with increases, then stitches that are picked up and knitted along the top of the back yoke.The body is worked back and forth. The sleeves are worked in the round on a circular needle from stitches that are picked up and knitted along the armhole openings. At the end, front plackets are worked as well as a ribbed neck edge."
This was a bit tricky, since it tells you to finish in the same row but there's a row mismatch because of them being mirrored. When finished, I had a centimeter less than she intended, but since you need to finish on either a half or a full diamond repeat, I decided to substract 1cm rather than add 3cm to the total.
I've seen in the Ravelry projects some knitters who chose to pick up the shoulder pieces differently, since the front and back pieces don't match up in the original patterns. It doesn't bother me, so I followed the instructions.
However, my finished body length was the recommended length for size XXS. I believe the jumper worn by PetiteKnit in the promotional pictures is longer than this, so I if I had wanted the same fit as hers I would have ignored the length recommendation and knit half a diamond more.
For the ribbings I used 3.5mm needles, and to smooth the transition I worked the last cable row in 3.5mm. I used a tubular bind off. The reason I didn't use the recommended 4mm needles for the ribbing is because I've had trouble with streched out ribbing in cable knits before. I think it sometimes happens because the cable fabric isn't as stretchy as ribbing, so the ribbing looks wider than the cabled pattern.
For the sleeves, I picked up the recommended number for size XXS and decreased 10 sts in the first round (5 after the BOR, 5 before the BOR). The original design has very wide, balloon-like sleeves, so this made them tapered. I followed the decrease instructions for my size afterwards.
I knit the plackets exactly as described. In my opinion, the plackets look very tidy and sturdy - I think the pick up rate was perfectly calculated. The buttonhole instructions are great as well, the buttonholes are almost invisible when the jacket is open.
For the buttons, I picked the same style of buttons as PetiteKnit. They really make the knit look like a jacket instead of a cardigan.
Final conclusions:
Overall, I'm very happy with this knit. There's nothing I'd change if I knit it again! I found the instructions to be very thorough and detailed. The finishings are very professional, and I'll definitely use her buttonhole technique in the future.